Tag: Google Reader

Google has been recently testing multiple account sign-in, which would allow users to sign-in with multiple accounts to Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Google Sites and Google Code without having to sign-out of an account.

This feature has now been rolled out to users in phases and can be used to access multiple Google accounts. If you have not yet enable Google Multi Sign-in Feature, here are some simple steps for enabling the Google Multi Sign-in feature.

Step 2: Click on the Edit link next to Multiple sign-in listed under Personal Settings. If you do not see the link it will be rolled out to your account shortly.

Step 3: On the Edit page, select the radio button next to "On – Use multiple Google Accounts in the same web browser." and then make selections from the checkboxes below after you have read the details. After you have done that, just click the "Save" button.

That’s it, you will now be able to check emails, calendar, docs and more from multi-account using a drop down provided at the top of the screen. If you want to add another account, just click on the down arrow key and click on the link which says Sign in to another account and then provide your login credentials to it.

If you want to disable the multiple account sign-in in Google, just follow the same instructions. However, in Step 2 click the Radio button next to "Off – Use on Google Account at a time"

This is definitely one of the most useful features I have seen with Google or any other service because it takes out the hassle of managing and maintaining several different accounts.

We all love to hate IE6. It is an absolute mess for today’s AJAX powered websites. Though, this might not hold true in the corporate world where IE6 is still held in high esteem.

The corporate world uses a balanced combination of the flaws and popularity of IE6 to block popular social networking websites and keep its employees’ head in the game. Most companies deploy technologies like DNS poisoning and blacklisting to check access to websites but they are easily bypassed. However, using IE6 is the crudest and the most effective method by far. It can also cut down the costs on implementing a firewall.

Given the fact that most users are not allowed installing their own software on office computers, this has proven to be a full proof method, but only up until now. Now that IE6 has seen nine summers, the kill IE6 campaign is at its strongest. Very soon, this widespread usage of IE6 in companies might backfire with most official applications like email services (Gmail) moving to advanced unsupported features.

Google made the latest blow against IE6 by removing support for IE6 in its Google Reader service. Although, will not change much of the corporate scenario, it can bring about some changes for home PC users.

I am a big fan of Google Reader, thanks to it’s simplicity and the ability to access the same feeds from wherever I want. However, how about adding some Zing to the feed reader?

Google Reader Play is a new feature which will allow you to browse RSS feeds visually through a feed slideshow. Google Reader Play provides users with an option to browse interesting stuff on the web, which is personalized to a user’s liking.

Reader Play also allows you to star items, which will then allow Google to display more items which match your tastes. Users can also browser their current subscriptions in Google Reader Play, by clicking on the arrow appearing next to the folder or RSS feed in the sidebar and selecting "View in Reader Play"

Language barrier can really be a pain while communicating with people, likewise the web is also made up of several websites which are not in your native language. So would you skip reading interesting content, just because it is in a language you do not understand.

Most likely the answer would be yes, however, there are several ways to translate web page content, one of involves Google Translate, but what if you want to subscribe to a RSS feed of a website in a foreign language?

Turns out that there are several ways in which you can translate RSS Feeds and then subscribe to them in your own native language. I will list out a few resources using which you can translate RSS feeds to your own language and then subscribe to them in your RSS reader.

Google Reader Translation

If you are a Google Reader user, translating feeds to your own language is a piece of cake. Just subscribe to the RSS feed you want in Google Reader and click on the "Feed Settings" button. From the available options, select "Translate into my language" for the foreign language feed. That’s it, Google will use the Translate API to translate the feed to the language you have in your account settings.

Yahoo Pipes

Yahoo Pipes is one of the most innovative piece of software ever created. It allows you to mashup RSS feeds and create a single one. In addition to that, Yahoo Pipes also offers several other functionalities, one of them being the ability to translate RSS feeds to your native language.

Webware has detailed instructions on how you can translate a RSS feed to your own language. Head over to this link to learn the trick.

Ed Note: The Babel Fish translation operator is deprecated, you will find it under the Deprecated options.

Feed Language Translation

Feed Language is a RSS feed translator which is powered by the Google AJAX API and uses Google Translate API for translating feeds to and from 52 languages. To create a feed, just enter the URL of the RSS feed and select the language combination.

Feed Language will create a new RSS feed which will contain the translated content. You can then use the new RSS URL to subscribe to the feed in your RSS reader.

Mloovi – RSS Feed Translator

Mloovi is a free tool which translates RSS newsfeeds from and to 52 languages using Google Translate. You can sing up for a free account and translate RSS feeds to your language. The converted RSS feeds will contain ads from Mloovi.

That’s it, using the above tools or services you can get through the language barrier with ease and keep up with the latest news on your favorite websites.

If you have been following a recent event on a Blogger or Posterous blog via Google Reader, chances are that you might have noticed the near-instantaneous delivery of a published post. Yes, Google Reader has sped up; posts from blogs that use the open PubSubHubbub (PSHB) protocol for publish/subscribe communications are put up instantaneously on Google Reader. This is great news for those who wish to follow a current development closely without delays!

Though it has always been a source of disappointment to many Google Reader users, the company did not address the complaint of late delivery till now. Google, however, is yet to officially state anything in this regard, though a Google spokesperson confirmed this development. PubSubHubbub is used by Google itself (and Blogger by extension) via Feedburner and the App Engine. WordPress users can install a PSHB plugin to their blog to enable this functionality.

We are still waiting for an official confirmation, as stated before. The official blog still has the recommendations post up, and it is likely to stay there for a couple of days as Google irons out any issues with real-time support. Nevertheless it is heartening to see the speedy delivery now in Google Reader. Kudos to Google!

As you know, Apple has announced its much hyped tablet computer, iPad, and this news has turned almost everyone crazy. This is a totally disgusting situation for some of us (like me) who are not interested in iPad and want to focus on other things. My RSS reader is overloaded with articles covering the Apple tablet, and I hope this situation will remain the same for next few days.

If you are looking for any solution to reduce the RSS load in Google Reader, thankfully here is a Greasemonkey script which filters unwanted content based on keywords. This greasemonkey script, Google Reader Filter, helps you to focus on interesting topics by filtering blogposts with provided keywords.

How to use Google Reader Filter?

Install the userscript from here and reload the Google Reader page. Now, a link named Filter Settingswill appear on top right corner of the page.

Click this link and provide keywords and regex to exclude. All RSS items that match the provided keywords will be displayed with dull gray text, so that they don’t attract much of attention.

Another interesting feature of this script is its ability to highlight entries with selected keywords. It increases the visibility of those items. For example, if you have added a keyword JavaScript to the Highlights column blogposts with the keyword JavaScript will be highlighted with a lime background.

So the next time you face a situation like this, use this userscript to increase your productivity. Google Reader Filter requires the Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox and works wherever Firefox does.

RSS Feeds are a good way to keep up with recent updates on blogs or websites. However, there is always a chance that you might come across a website or webpage which does not provide you with RSS Feeds. However, those pages may be updated frequently.

In such cases, users usually have to go back to the website frequently to check for updates. However, if you are a Google Reader user, here is some good news which will help you keep up with the updates through RSS for websites which do not provide them.

Google has introduced a new feature called "Custom feed" will will allow users to track changes on pages that don’t have their own feed. For example, if you want to track the updates on http://www.google.org/products.html, just copy the URL and click on the "Add a subscription" button to add it as a feed.

To add a website without RSS feeds, use the "Create a feed" option and enter the URL of the website. Once the feed has been created, Google Reader will periodically visit the website and check for any updates on it.

Google Reader will only display short snippets of the actual changes to help you decide if the page is worth revisiting. This feature will definitely come in handy for people who are looking to get updates from websites without feeds the easier way. However, in addition to allowing users to create RSS feeds for websites which don’t support them, Google also has an option for website owners to opt-out of the feature.

Another neat RSS reader iPhone/iPod Touch app is up for grabs. The RSS Flash g Lite is a paid to free app which synchronizes with your Google Reader account and allows you to easily read feeds on the go.

RSS Flash allows you to synchronize your feeds with your Google account. RSS Flash was earlier available for $1.99, but is now completely free. However, it does not include sharing features. Those can be additionally purchased for $0.99.

However, if you want to read on feeds on the go, this looks like a pretty good app.

Google does not have a dedicated Google reader app for the iPhone, however you can download the iGReader app for Free and sync up with your Google Reader account.

The iGReader apps allows you to read feeds on your iPhone or iPod Touch and syncs with your Google Reader account so that you can stay up-to-date on the go. You can also categorize your feeds, delete subscriptions and search for new ones using the app.